That indicates Bank of America’s current operations might be unsustainable. It may need to cut back on some activities or close a lot of branches just to survive. A big problem here is that brick and mortar bank branches might no longer be profitable. Perhaps they should be closed and replaced with automatic teller machines.

All of this makes Bank of America a value investment because it has a lot of problems, but it’s still capable of making a lot of money. More importantly it’s cheap because the problems scare a lot of investors away.

Those who stay do make money they were rewarded with a return on equity of 8.12% on June 30, 2017. That was up from 6.65% in June 2016, which proves bargain hunters like Warren Buffett are right about this stock.

A major problem is that revenues at JPMorgan and Bank of America are well below their historic highs. JPMorgan reported revenues of $99.13 billion back in June 2013; Citi reported revenues of $77.40 billion as recently as September 2014, and BOA’s revenues hit a high of $97.59 billion in June 2012.

Bank of New York Mellon is not just a bank with offices in Manhattan it is a FinTech play. BNY Mellon is one of four major banks developing the Utility Settlement Coin or USC, with the technology companies Icap and Clearmatics, Crowdfund Insider reported.

Another reason why bank revenues are growing is that upper income families are making more money. University of Berkeley Economist Emmanueal Saez reported that the incomes of the richest 1% of US workers increased by 7.7% in 2015, CBS reported.

If this trend progresses to its logical end bank tellers will disappear much like elevator operators did. It also raises a fascinating question: what will communities do with all those empty bank buildings?

Buffett’s thinking is that Wells Fargo has so much money; it can simply pay whatever fines and lawsuit settlements that stem from the phantom accounts scandal, and still have cash to spare. This seems like an obvious extension of Warren’s famed belief that a good business is one your idiot nephew could run and still make money. Here’s how he described in a 2010 discussion with the FDIC: